2014 Editors' Prize for Best Scholarly Paper

The editorial and advisory boards of Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Jossey- Bass, and Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University are pleased to announce that the Editors’ Prize for Volume 23 has been awarded to Thad Calabrese for his article “Running on Empty: The Operating Reserves of US Nonprofit Organizations.”

In his article, Calabrese analyzed why nonprofits' operating reserves vary and which factors are associated with organizations that maintain operating reserves. Operating reserves allow an organization to smooth out imbalances between revenues and expenses, helping to maintain program output in the presence of fiscal shocks. Despite the importance of reserves, nonprofits frequently report living on shoestring budgets whereby resource inflows and outflows are tightly matched and small interruptions can have dire consequences in their absence.

Thad Calabrese is an assistant professor of public and nonprofit financial management in the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.

The Editors’ Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in NML during the preceding subscription year. Winners receive a $1,000 cash prize courtesy of the Case Western Reserve University and $1,000 in books from Jossey-Bass.

Winners are selected by the members of NML’s editorial and advisory boards. Criteria are based on the article’s contribution to knowledge in the field of nonprofit management, the quality of the writing and analysis, and the usefulness of the information for the practice of nonprofit management and leadership.